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"From the Shadows"Written By: Honor Disclaimers: The boys are not mine (curses!) however all the other characters are, and the story, and the idea, and my evil muse. You can have my evil muse. Pairings: 4x5 Spoilers: Nope Warnings: AU, soooo AU, maybe a hint of OOC, violence,
lemon, language, political scheming and fantasy elements. Oh, and
unicorns. ^_^ Rating: R Archived: Gundam Wing Diaries Betas: Velvet and Caitilin *emphasized* =thought= ::mental communication: :
" From the Shadows " Prologue
Not a light sprinkle, but hard vicious sheets of rain that battered his body and obscured his vision. The ground was slippery because of it, which both helped and thwarted his efforts. Hard to breathe. Hard to move. But he didn’t have a choice—he had to do both if he were to survive. =Chances of my surviving this are minimal. One leg is broken, the other one badly bruised; ribs are bruised, maybe cracked; I’ve got one hell of a shiner if the throbbing on my face is any indication; and I’m out here alone, with only the dead for company.= What he needed was help—but there was no one to ask for it. And no guarantee that it would be granted, even if he did ask. He dragged himself out of the sea regardless. It wasn’t in his blood to give up, and he was more obstinate than most. Around bodies, weapons, driftwood, he kept crawling. Night fell, removing the faint light that had helped guide him, and he knew that he had to stop. Crawling along the shoreline of a foreign country with who-knew-what roaming about at night was a very stupid move. Actually, just being out at night was a stupid move, period. =No choice.= He’d gone perhaps a mile altogether, although it felt like a hundred miles. His hand hit a cavity in the earth. Cautiously he reached out, feeling what he couldn’t see. There was a huge log that’d fallen over a natural dip in the ground. It would shelter him some from the rain, and from any unwanted eyes. Nearly whimpering in relief he fell into it, settling as comfortably as possible— —and falling instantly asleep. + “Lowan, you cannot keep doing this. Leaving every major decision in the hands of your Doms is unwise.” There was a mutinous tightening of the lips, but no agreement. Wyrack sighed, something that was becoming a habit. He loved his new queen dearly, had practically raised her from birth, but if she didn’t grab control of the court soon he was very tempted to try shaking some sense into her. Most of this situation was not her fault. Her late father was very self-indulgent (his bad habits had actually been the cause of his death, since his routine of drinking himself under the table every night had destroyed his liver) and he had let the Doms and other officials do pretty much as they pleased, as long as their crimes weren’t too heinous and they didn’t effect his lifestyle. Chaelane had been influenced by her father’s example, but she’d also seen the consequences of living in such a way and was trying to exert more discipline over herself. At the tender age of fourteen she had ascended the throne, thrust into a world of politics, lies, shady dealings, power struggles, and meeting after meeting after meeting. No fourteen years old was really prepared to undertake such a tremendous burden. Okay, so perhaps he wouldn’t shake her hard. Just a little bit. “But I don’t know what to do!” Chaelane exclaimed in frustration, hands thrown into the air. “They all say different things, and hardly anyone agrees about anything. I just let the side with the most supporters do what they wish—they represent their people, so that’s the majority opinion anyway.” Maybe if he tried pounding sense into her… “Lowan, all that means is that they’ve bought out some of their competition beforehand. And these—” moronic buffoons “—people do not care what their people really want. They serve their own purposes.” She blinked up at him with those large and naïve blue eyes, brown ringlets dancing a bit around her face, looking like an animated doll. “Really? But I thought that was their job, to care for their people.” Wyrack resisted the urge to sigh again. “In theory, yes. In reality, they’ve long since stopped caring what their people want.” “Oh.” She nibbled on a dainty fingernail, apparently thinking that one over. “Well, it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know what to do.” That unfortunately was a good point. Even Wyrack didn’t know what to do half the time—and he had been the sorcerer and advisor to the royal family for well over three decades. “Nobody tells me anything,” Chaelane sighed with a growing frown. “Unless they want something, and then they only tell me enough to confuse me so that I’ll agree. Why can’t they just tell me the truth?” Her eyes cut up to his with a rebellious pout. “You always say that making a good decision is not possible unless you have good information.” The wonderful thing about fourteen year olds was their ability to parrot your words back to you precisely when you didn’t want them to. “Lowan, perhaps your first task should be to find a way to be well informed on the issues before they’re aired in court.” “Hmm.” Her head cocked thoughtfully, and one finger came up to tug absently at a ringlet. “That’s not a bad idea. But how to do it…” + At precisely 3:15 the next morning, Chaelane sat up with a gasp in bed, eyes wide. Great ideas tended to hit her at three in the morning, for some odd reason. She left a notepad by her bed so that she could write them down—she used to just go back to sleep, but she never remembered the idea the next time she woke up. It was very vexing to know you had a great idea, but be unable to remember it. This time she dutifully wrote it down, and went right back to sleep. At eight o’clock she was awoken by her Abigail, and had breakfast in the little room right off her bedroom. She forgot about the notepad completely until the maid brought it to her. (The maids had discovered what the pad contained and were thoughtful enough to remind their queen during breakfast. They vastly preferred this method over her dramatic lamentations later in the day when she tried to remember her early morning revelation and couldn’t.) Chaelane accepted the pad and read it through. “Oh! That’s right, I remember that now. Have someone fetch Wyrack.” She grinned to herself happily and took a long sip of her tea. “I have the solution!” Wyrack was dutifully summoned, given enough time to dress (morning person he was not, and it was getting harder to get out of bed with a tired body and creaking joints) and bowed into the queen’s chambers. After practically raising Chaelane, Wyrack was not at all surprised by either the summons or the reasons. He dearly wished he’d been able to guzzle a cup of hot tea though. Dealing with an enthusiastic Chaelane was trying at the best of times, and he had no wish to do it when half awake. “Yes, Lowan?” “Wyrack, I have the solution!” There were so many different problems in the air at that moment Wyrack was a bit stumped as to which one she was referring to. “Indeed. Solution to what?” She rolled her eyes, peeved that he wasn’t automatically reading her mind. “To my being better informed about things of course!” Maybe he should make a habit of waking up before her and guzzling tea first thing, just in preparation for the next time something like his happened… “And what solution will that be?” “Well, the main problem is that I don’t know who to trust, right? So, I’ll appoint someone that can investigate all of the issues, and then tell me the whole truth! See, it’s very simple.” She beamed at him brightly, quite pleased with herself. Patience…don’t sigh, it only encourages her… “And where will you find such a person, Lowan?” She blinked at him. “Why, you’re going to do a scrying for me of course.” Wyrack felt the need for some trauma induced stress relief wash over him. Maybe banging his head against the table would help. “Lowan, I cannot possibly do such a thing!” “Really?” Her head cocked slightly as she nibbled on her bottom lip in worry. “Is it against the rules or something?” “A scrying is when you are searching for a thing, or an area…you can’t search for a concept like ‘honesty’.” “You’re not.” She picked up her toast and bit into it daintily. “You’re searching for an honest *person*. See? It’s possible. Try to get it done while I’m in the morning conference, please.” All out of ways to protest, Wyrack accepted the inevitable scolding that he would get later and sighed in resignation. + Scryings were not accurate, or even reliable on a regular basis. Wyrack had been a sorcerer for nearly forty years, had performed thousands of scryings, and he could count on one hand the number of times that he had been given a clear clue as to what he was looking for. Usually he was just given some kind of a hint. A vague hint. The few times he’d performed a ‘successful’ scrying (something that didn’t muddle the issue even more, in other words) it had been because he was given very specific guidelines to go off of. ‘Honest person’ was not, needless to say, specific. Also needless to say, he wasn’t holding his breath on the outcome of this scrying. Dutifully he set up the preparations— clear water in the silver bowl, incense burning nearby, and a focusing crystal in one hand—cleared his mind, and started the incantation. An honest person…someone that could say the absolute truth to the queen, be able to find the information that she needed…they’d have to be morally strong and reject all attempts at bribes or corruption…good with people, clever in speaking… “Reveal!” Wyrack opened his eyes, looking straight into the bowl—and nearly stumbled backwards in shock. It was a clear image! The boy in the water couldn’t have been more than seventeen, with fair skin, bright blond hair and the most penetrating turquoise eyes. Wyrack blinked at the image stupidly for a moment. Such a person actually existed… unbelievable. “Location.” The image wavered out, and was replaced by a map with one town pulsating slightly. Roan. It couldn’t be clearer than that. “Dispel.” Wyrack snatched up a cloak from a chair near the door, calling for an elk and guards as he went. Roan was not even an hour away by elk back. He could be there and half way back before the meeting ended. This, he simply had to verify in person. ~*~*~*~
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